Stage 5 Denial - Humiliation - Dehumanized

Denial and Dehumanization

Prologue to Stage 5

The hook of the "But" in Stage 3 led into the Double-Bind in Stage 4. The "hook" in Stage 4 was "Guilt;" whichever choice was made, the Bound was "Guilty" either against the Binder or against the Self. However, the Bound was praised as "Good" if he or she "chose" to obey the Binder and to silence the Self. Not seeing that both were negative choices, the "choice" to obey the "Good-Binder" made the reversal from Self-determination to authoritarian control complete.

The Bound has now "chosen" to be "good," which becomes the "hook" in Stage 5, and receives "Praise" from the Binder for being obedient. A true "conversion" has taken place; all "guilt" of the Self has been "washed" away; a new life with no history begins. All that is needed to keep being "Good" is to obey the Binder in all things and to reflect his mind.

The humanity and reason that existed in the Open System is now denied and declared the "enemy" of the Closed System of the Binder. From having one personal name, each person now shares one classificatory name with many others (given in the Temple Ceremony); the individual has disappeared. Obedience to new, secret laws are required, with punishments attached for revealing the accompanied "sacred" ordinances, the new name, and the penalties associated with their secret Covenants. Those who belong to this New World Order are few in number and considered part of the vanguard of this new Elite church. They have a Leader who oversees these new Covenants and is also the Guardian over His flock of new converts. They are told, He will not lead those who follow him astray. He holds the "Keys" to the mystery of His Powers, the mysterious Pattern of The Double-Bind, which only He has been selected to understand, and from which He can "prophesy." He has His Praetorian Guards to shield these Keys of the "Incomprehensible" from the general membership. They are not ready for this "Advanced History" (which is concealed in its past secular history). It can only be understood under the "Mantle of the Spirit." The new converts become as "little children" who must first have milk, therefore, Faith needs to take the place of Knowledge ... of The "Keys" ... the meat.

His Guards must fight the enemies of the "Incomprehensible," and since the Power lies in the "Keys," they must be kept hidden; they are not secret, they say ... however, they are too "sacred" for speech (= "No, but, Yes"). To protect these "sacred" mysteries, another "Key" is provided to keep silence imposed on His members ... the "Yes, but no, yet is" ... which says, "Yes," there may have been (a history), "but" it is no longer ..., "yet" it is ... in an advanced way."

This is the stage of obfuscation, denial, silence and obedience. It is done "kindly" and with subtlety; the voice of the "Guardian" speaks. The members of this New World Order are to see it as a new restored "Paradise." Now being part of this Elite by association, they are all occupants of an isolated island "Paradise." All within this "Paradise" reflect this new image in every way. They each become an "Adam" or an "Eve" who are as innocent as little children. They are admonished to stay in this "pure" state and to be totally guided by their Guardian Leader.

Note:
Stage 5 is the "Zig" part of the "Zig-Zag" course of two stages, "Zag" being that of Stage 6. The Guardian belongs to stage 5 ... the "benevolent" aspect of his dual personality; you could say he is a "Dr. Jekyll," the healer of the injuries incurred during the Double-Bind chaos of Stage 4. In stage 6, he becomes the formerly hidden "Mr. Hyde," the opposite aspect of "Dr. Jekyll." What "Dr. Jekyll" says, is not what "Mr. Hyde" does. These two stages work alternately, creating a "double-faced" character; the two acting as one; this result is called hypocrisy in the Real World and the basis of the Double Standard. This dual personality is also shown in Stage 3 as the "Yes" and the "But" aspects, as well as in stage 4 of the Double-Bind as the "Good" and the "Evil" aspects.

The Double Standard is caused by the Binder's theft of the good qualities of the Bound and the projection of the Binder's bad qualities onto the Bound. When he does anything, it is "Good." When the Bound does the same thing, it is "Bad." The Binder must always be "intelligent;" the Bound must always be "stupid." If there is a "Law" in the New World Order that the Boundobeys, then in order that the Binder may keep her in her assigned place, she is accused of being "mindless" ... that she needs "rules" to follow ... i.e., she is condemned for not being able to think for herself. On the other hand, if the Binderdoesn't obey the "Law," he is the "Mind" that is above the "Law;" he doesn't need the rules. The Bound is left with the implicit demand to intuit the "intelligent," higher Mind of the Binder ... as to when she should ... ("Yes,") obey rules ... or when she should already know when rules are ("But, No ...") notnecessary.

This is also another double-bind. When she follows the rules, as above, she is "guilty." When she doesn't follow the rules, she is also "guilty." She walks on "egg shells" looking for a sign that would indicate in advance the Binder's illusive whim.

Even thoughin years members of the Mormon church may be considered adults, in the growth of maturity of mind they are kept as little children, totally dependent on a Doctor Jekyll-Shepherd to heal them of their cronic child-like inability to get things "right." Mormonism causes the evils that it condemns and promises to heal.

The dual personality of the Binder is a Janus; one face looks back to the Open System (reason, which it claims); the other looks forward to the Closed System (no reason), then, as One entity, claims both.

Denial"It is extremely difficult to leave the Mormon Church....They will encourage you to ignore your doubts, and to push them to the back of your mind, in order to keep your testimony. ...It saddens me to see LDS people walking through life with their eyes tightly closed so they won't lose their faith."
Post #2.

(Members are encouraged continually to deny reality; they reflect the Binder's denial. They are to have One Mind only ... the Mind of the Binder.)

Denial - Blank-out / No-mind - Intimidation"When I went into the Bishop's office, I told him the reasons that I wished to be taken off the records of the church. I told him of what I had learned in the past year. He told me that he didn't want to excommunicate me because if I decided to come back it would be a long hard process- so he wanted to place me on inactive status instead. I told him that I never wanted to come back, and I wasn't going to change my mind. He said that he wanted to give me a book that was written by a General Authority, and he wanted me to read it and pray about it. I refused his offer and asked him if someone gave him a satanic bible and asked him to pray about it- if he would. He said that he wouldn't because he knew that it was wrong, and I told him he had just proven my point. Also in the meeting, he asked me if I had any questions, so I asked him about the holes that I found in the doctrine of the Mormon Church. He didn't really answer any of my questions, but just beat around the bush, and ended with his testimony that he knew the Mormon church was true without a shadow of a doubt.He told me that he wouldn't be able to grant my request to have my records removed until he had talked to the Stake President. It's been over a year now, and this process still hasn't been completed. Post #6

"Yes," do question ... "But," no answers ... "Yet," he "knows" without a shadow of a doubt.

(The bishop denied his own reasoning powers, plus, in refusing to acknowledge her request, he was denying her right to reason and choose for herself; and, as an extension of that mind-set, he employed silence and delaying tactics ... as if the meeting had never taken place. Blank-out.)

Denial of the Old, plus a New Identity"The church offered me a sense of identity. I received endless praise and encouragement when I continued to eagerly learn, absorbing information like a sponge. The sense of elitism (WE had the TRUTH that no one else had) made me feel special. For a while, the church fulfilled a strong need. I finally fit in."
Post #13. See: Stage 1, #13.

Denial - "Guardian"
"I was absent from church on Sunday for 2 weeks, a few members called me saying they were 'concerned.' That is actually a code word. They were simply coercing me into coming to church. I was naive enough to think they were worried about my health and reassured them I was in good health. On the third Sunday, I was out of town. They called and left messages on my answering machine. I came back home very late and did not return any calls. The next day, three officials from the church came to my place of work, but visitors must state the reason for their visit and personal visitors are not allowed at my work place. By that evening, they had called one of my bosses because 'they were concerned'. I was furious ..." Post # l6. See: Stages 1, 2-3, & 4. #16

(Her reasonable answer that she was in good health was not accepted nor acknowledged. The identity of the Binder as the 'concerned' "Guardian," was a subtle coercing ... she was not being "obedient" in her attendance at church. Numbers and records are an obsession in Mormonism, Members of the church are chastised if their assigned "contacts" don't attend regularly.)

Denial - Dehumanization - Elitism"I was taught that I was "better than the rest," "a superior being in the preexistence," "I would become a great goddess and populate universes." That was the exterior or (sic of) my family."
Post #20

(What is not taken into account when a human being begins to assume the "mantle" of a "god" or a "goddess," is that they begin to deny their identity as human beings and consequently all the associated characteristics that go with being human. They become dehumanized and placed on pedestals, which is a demotion not an elevation.)

Denial - "Guardian" - Silence"I was afraid to read them (books by ex-Mormons) and thought that I would probably feel a dark evil presence while I read them and I was sure that by the actions I'd already taken (having read other non-Mormon literature), that Satan was really trying to get at me. ....I didn't have that feeling at all. Finally, after years, probably since around the time I was baptized, I felt a sense of peace wash over me! I really felt free and life was starting to make some sense to me. It was like this horrible dark cloud that had hovered over my head was lifted.

"I had thought all the inconsistencies I had found over the years were from lack of knowledge about the church (well, I was right, in a way.) The times I had asked questions to bishops, they were brushed aside. I was told, "You worry about things too much that shouldn't bother you." or "You don't need to think about those things." I was never given answers.It was a relief to finally be able to piece things together and I finally felt a lot less ignorant.

"It's been a struggle with family ... I told my mom one night, I rambled on for 20 minutes, then she said, "Before you go any further, let me tell you that I think the same way." I was happy to hear that and that she had not found the things in the temple to be quite right either. I've always had a scary feeling in those places. But now she doesn't want to discuss it whenever I bring it up because it depresses her. The other day, she asked me if I'd read a rebuttal book her Home Teachers told her about and I started explaining why it wasn't true and she said, "I knew I shouldn't have brought it up." She doesn't want to lose the close ties she has with her mom and sister."
Post #29

Denial - No-mind - Obfuscation"My most painful Mormon experience was learning that having faith in something does not necessarily make it true. ...There was something reckless and impulsive about telling a dying woman that she would be healed simply because my sister got a feeling that it was true. ... I have heard of or been witness to many other instances when blessings that promised healing or Patriarchal Blessings have turned out wrong. My great uncle's Patriarchal Blessing said that he would live to see the second coming of Christ. He died about 30 years ago at the age of 73. (An uninspired Patriarch?)

"I wondered too. The old there-are-some-things-the-Lord-doesn't-mean-for-us-to-understand explanation would not salve over my doubting that time. One thing that I have found over and over in Mormonism is that an explanation or excuse can be divined for just about ANYTHING that doesn't sit quite right. And if something can't be explained away, members are told to rely on faith. "If we could explain everything then there would be no faith and without faith we couldn't be tested."Yes, I've heard it all."
Post #30

Elitism "So and so isn't a member, but she is a really nice person" Putting qualifications on people via member or not."Zig-Zag"Hypocrisy with the capital H there! I knew many Mormons and Elders who spoke and taught one thing, then turned around and did the other. This was one of the main things that really turned my stomach."
Post #32-2 See: Stage 1. #32-2

"Yes ... No ... Yet is." - Humiliation"I knew that I was going on a mission for the right reason. I only wanted to share the True Gospel, and was filled with the Book of Mormon stories of faithful missionaries converting thousands. France was known as a difficult mission, but that only strengthened my desire to be a mighty missionary, filled with faith, finding all those special spirits just waiting for us to have enough faith to find them and convert them to Mormonism.

"Imagine my dismay when instead, I arrived in France to be told that my obedience was more valued than my faith ....the people of Bordeaux were NOT INTERESTED in our message. I wept every morning and night, and entered into a depression which lasted my entire mission, with varying degrees of severity. I called President Wheelwright and told him I needed to go home (this after 2 weeks in the field!) He convinced me to wait until our visiting General Authority (Brother Hale) came to inspire us with his guidance. My most vivid memory (backed up by my extensive journal entries) of Brother Hale's talk was that he berated us for being poor missionaries. The whole reason we could not convert people was due to our pitiful lack of faith.He berated the elders by insinuating that the sisters were far more faithful than they were(evidently to be compared poorly to a woman was his idea of the ultimate humiliation.) I felt like crawling under my chair, for I knew that we could not be any better than the elders, for we were too pitiful, too."
Post #42

"Yes, faith is the most important thing for a missionary.""No. Obedience is the priority. "Yet, faith is the most important ... you fail because you don't have enough faith.(Humiliationat the insinuation that the elders were even below their sistersin their abilities to have Faith.)

"What was, is not, yet is" - Silence - Projection "I feel that the Church leadership is not inspired. It would be laughable, if not so pathetic, that (Apostle) Packer could actually say that the three greatest threats to the church are homosexuals, feminists, and so-called intellectuals. ... Neither could I stomach the recent purge that forced out several intellectuals like Paul Toscano and D. Michael Quinn. This is particularly troubling in light of the iron grip the church keeps on its own history, preventing free inquiry into its origins, as if it had something to fear.In the end, the two statements that "The glory of God is intelligence," and "When the Brethren speak, the thinking has been done," are simply mutually incompatible." Post #43 See: Stage 1,4 #43
"What was, is not, yet is." The Mormon history that was, is not the truehistory, yet is ... the "advanced history" which can only be perceived under the "Mantle of the Spirit."

Zig: What is "said," "The glory of God is intelligence."Zag: What is done: "The thinking has been done, when the Brethren speak."

(To have "intelligence" in the Mormon church is to repeat verbatim what you have been told you are supposed to "know." This begins in childhood by statements like this: "All I need to know is what I learnedin Primary.")

Obedience - Perfection - God or Goddess"I was always shocked when I was called to a position and wondered if the Bishop really received message from God to call me to that position since I knew I wasn't worthy. But in talking to other women I found out I wasn't alone but was always told that God calls us to positions for our personal growth and that by accepting these callings we would be on the road to perfection. I accepted everything I was told as gospel truth ...."
Post #53 See: Stages 1, 2-3. #53

(The guilt from Stages 3 and 4 carry over and is added to this stage; one never feels entirely "worthy." Perfection, aiming for god or goddess status and the Celestial Kingdom, is another the "carrot on the end of the stick." Obedience is all that is required in stage 5; faith has become automatic because "the thinking has already been done." Obedience, Work, and Proselytizing for the "up-building of the Kingdom" here on earth becomes one's whole life, the "road to perfection" ... of perfect obedience.)

Obedience - Silence"As I got older, there were more and more things I found that I disagreed with. I thought something must be wrong with me, because here are all of these adults telling me that the church is true and that they knew it was true. When I would ask questions about something said, I was told not to question the leaders of the church. If I didn't agree with something someone said, I was told that I just had to accept that it was from God and that it was His word. We were to never question or disagree with the leaders of the church."
Post #55

"Was, is not, yet is.""I do not believe in polygamy, which the church teaches will be a part of the eternal plan in Heaven. (In the 80's, seminary lessons included this fact, now, as the church is ever-changing, they claim that information about this hasn't been "revealed" yet. This is from missionaries that I spoke with shortly before I left the church.)"
Post #55(Polygamy "Was," before it was outlawed by the U. S. Government; "Is not," because it hasn't been "revealed" yet; "Yet is" ... plural marriages are still being performed in the temple for the next life.)_____________________________________________________________________

"Was, is not, yet is." - Silence as an Answer(This is the next stage in the experience of the 7 year old girl who had been molested and raped by a Bishop's counselor in the church building. As an adult the psychological and emotional unearned guilt she carried from these traumas was devastating.)

"... I came across the book "Miracle of Forgiveness: by Spencer W. Kimball. He had been my favorite prophet and I was always in awe of him. But his statement regarding chastity left me feeling like I had been kicked in the stomach:

"Restitution for Loss of Chastity"
Also far-reaching is the effect of chastity. Once given or taken or stolen it can never be regained. Even in a forced contact such as rape or incest, the injured one is greatly outraged. If she has not cooperated and contributed to the foul deed, she is of course in a more favorable position. There is no condemnation where there is no voluntary participation. It is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle.

"All of the past came rushing back to me with such a force that I was in bed for days. ....I made an appointment with my Bishop. I told him of the abuse that my uncles did to me. (After the molestations by the counselor, she had been sexually abused, when she was about 9 years old, by her father's brothers ... the father that had been jailed for abusing his wife.) (I didn't make any mention of my questions regarding church discrepancies at this time.) He said all the right words, "It's okay, You are forgiven...It isn't your fault, etc. ..." Then I showed him what I had read in "The Miracle of Forgiveness." He told me that the book was "outdated" for today and that those words wouldn't stand in my situation. I was again confused. The prophet of the Lord wrote this book, and it wouldn't stand? It was outdated? But, I did find comfort in the fact that this Bishop said he would do anything he could to help me rid myself of my past so that I could go on with my life. He and I had a few more sessions until I felt better about things. He did everything he could to help me and I began to rely on his talks with me a great deal. I felt good about my life.

"But the anxiety and panic whenever I would go to church would continue. I thought it must be God's way of telling me I didn't belong. The Bishop would insist that perhaps I wasn't "doing my part" by reading the Book of Mormon. That I should study it more diligently. God would give me comfort if I TRULY seeked it... I finally told the Bishop about my experience with the counselor in the Bishopric between the ages of 7 and 8. (Before and after baptism.) He immediately got a cold look on his face and shut off completely. He told me right then that he was unable to help me any further and that he wouldn't be able to speak to me again until I got professional help. I would try and call him at home and he refused my calls. (My calls were always a priority before.) I felt abandoned again. I felt alone and discarded and violated. I had shared things with this Bishop that I hadn't shared with anyone and he just plain didn't care anymore. I was suicidal. I didn't believe that God could or would love me if His Bishop couldn't love and accept me. I truly believed that with all of my heart."
Post #61 See: Stage #4, #61

"Yes, " it is better to die in defending one's virtue than to live having lost it without a struggle."(... even if you are a child ... had no choice of your environment ... was caught in double-bind situations imposed by authoritarian figures representing "God" that you had been trained to obey and trust ... who proceeded to rape your mind and your body. How could she have mentally or physically defended herself?)

"But, no," "The Miracle of Forgiveness" book is "outdated" for today."(Even though it was written by a prophet.)

"Yet, is" not outdated. This was implied when the bishop cut her off completely and erected a wall of impenetrable silence ... abandoning her. In The Pattern,silence, to the Bound, means unspoken assent ... an assumption of "guilt." This, also, is the blank-out of any guilt on the part of the abuser; it has been projected to the abused.

Silence"To this day, no one has ever asked why I left the church: it's Not To Be Mentioned, by mutual silent agreement. Don't rock the spiritual boat."
Post # 69 See: Stages 2-3, 4. #69

Stage 5 as Experienced by Men

Denial - Revisionism, History Rewritten - New Time - Obfuscation and Deceit

Omission
"President Kimball and his wife toured Finland in l975 when I was a missionary ...What was really striking was when Sister Kimball spoke to us. In part of her talk she digressed from an apparently memorized (from being given so many times) speech and talked about an experience at the University of Utah. She took an institute class there while her husband was an apostle and was troubled by what the instructor (an LDS liberal evidently) was presenting to the class. She expressed her troubles with her husband who lightly dismissed them. The casual dismissal was a problem for her. What is fascinating now is that she would have expressed any doubt at all to us and it was clearly out of context with the talk she was giving. This digression occurred in mid-thought on another subject. When we got our transcripts of the talk, I noticed that this was not included. Here was history being rewritten right before my eyes."

Revisionism
"LDS History: The visitation of 1820 of God and Jesus to Joseph Smith has been shown by the mass of information on the supposed event, to have never occurred. The date conflicts with other recorded historical events and even with Joseph Smith's mother's account of her son's history! No one ever mentioned this revelation until Smith dictated it 18 years later! It plays no role at all in Mormon history until the1860's. His early hand written account (1831-1832 diary) does not even mention God the father visiting. He forgot that God visited him? That is absurd. As Smith got older, he got bolder in his claims of power and visitations and the creating of an imaginary history is just part of that. He did this when there were fewer eyewitnesses around who could claim such events never happened or did not happen the way he testified to. When a Mormon reads the official history today it appears everything occurred in a certain order when in reality most items were back dated and created out of thin air to lend credibility to the ever increasing stories.

History Rewritten
"The official Mormon history has been heavily rewritten. This is one of the most disturbing things I discovered in our research of the church. Even the official History of the Church is only 40% Joseph Smith's writings when it is still claimed to be 100%. The 40% has been rewritten so as to be "faith" promoting" and the 60%, which was not his writing at all, was selectively chosen from other people's writings and rewritten to make him out to be something he was not."

Deceit
"I believe deceit goes on at all levels of the church by seasoned members, with much of it well intended, but done with incredible ignorance. The degree of deceit varies with the intelligence, knowledge and church position of the seasoned members involved. When a member of the church brings up a historical or doctrinal problem, a seasoned member has learned how to give pat answers which give a superficially satisfactory resolution. For example, the question of why is the temple so similar to Masonry may get asked. The standard answer is that Masonry goes back to Solomon's temple. Any reasonable inquiry into that myth will show it to be absurd historically. This does seem however to satisfy one who does not dig any deeper and does not want to be troubled. Senior members of the church dole out such dribble all the time. In many cases they do not know themselves and give such a response because it was satisfactory to them. More intelligent individuals, such as Hugh Nibley, use their prolific creation of unrelated materials to confuse the question and the normal church then concludes all must be well because someone wrote so much about it and the member is too overwhelmed to be troubled anymore. Is this deceit? I think it is. A seasoned member usually wants to give the impression of having superior knowledge and spirituality with no doubts expressed verbally about his or her faith. This facade is required in leadership positions and is also required in most mormon social circles. The senior levels of the church are composed of individuals who hide behind their positions of trust and are experts at giving great impressions. This is subtle and powerful deception."
Post #1

Elitism"To be a Mormon takes a lot of dedication and time. The average service on Sunday is over three hours, and that's not counting other activities during the week. The Church makes sure its members are always involved, which is one of its selling points. Mormons are made to feel important."
Post # 2 See: Stage 2-3, & 4. #2

"What is said" - What is done."I felt like I needed to atone for the sins of my parents. (they drank beer at family picnics, opened their grocery store on Sunday, and drank coffee every morning; his mother started smoking. His closest Mormon friend taunted him.) It seemed to me that becoming a super Mormon was the only way I could be accepted by my Mormon friends and neighbors. I was determined to be a saint. I attended church every Sunday, went through four years of seminary even though only three were required for graduation, begged my dad to close the store on Sunday, tried to get my mother to quit smoking, read the scriptures regularly, prayed about everything, and dreamed of the day I could go on a mission.

"I'd pleaded with my dad not to open the store on Sunday, but when I was 16 I went to work for the bishop in our ward. He raised fruit and sold it at a fruit stand on the highway. You guessed it. He kept the stand open on Sunday. I also realized that I'd idealized the lives (of) many of the neighbors. I later discovered that under the surface of several of these Sunday perfect families existed a cauldron of anger, tension, and abuse that did not exit in our home."
Post #4

Obedience - History: "What was, is not."
"I was married ... in the Seattle, Washington temple on May 3, l984. I attended that temple with the belief that I would be instructed in sacred and ancient ceremonies, right from the Lord himself. As was expected of me, I obediently promised to slit my throat etc., rather than reveal the secrets of the temple. I was surprised to learn in l989 from a Mormon who wanted me to "come back to the temple, because I would like it better now" that the Lord had changed his mind yet again, and redone his sacred temple ceremony. Even as a Mormon who did not yet understand that the temple ceremony is really a Masonic ceremony copied word for word, I knew that something was wrong! Why would God just suddenly change his mind about his own "sacred ceremony," eliminating the "penalties" and other sacred portions? Maybe God is rather a "politically correct" God. When confronted with opposition on the issue of polygamy, he simply changes his stance on it. When confronted with Civil Rights he ignores his "prophet" who said, "If there was one drop of Negro blood" a black man could never hold the Priesthood, and caves in under the pressure. When people like me are made uncomfortable with the temples' bloody oaths, God just rewrites the program. How convenient for the leadership of the Mormon Church to have such a changeable, malleable, saleable God."
Post #14

(In time, with newer converts, the old history will have been forgotten by omission and will become the "advanced history" ... the "meat" that cannot be understood by the finite mind; only the revised history will be taught and remembered, as was done with the History of Joseph Smith and now is being done with Brigham Young. The new Mormon "history" now mentions only two wives of Brigham ... the first having died before his second marriage. The original history recorded that Brigham Young had a total of 55 wives.)

Dehumanization
"We were told in no uncertain terms by our mission president, .... that our most important job as a missionary was to see people baptized, period. In addition, the regional representative at that time, Gene R. Cook ....told us in various meetings that our job was to BAPTIZE, and that we were not to worry about whether or not they were; a) Truly ready - that was between them and God... They would have these big mission-wide conferences, and the leaders would get up and tell the Elders & Sisters that we should be focusing on NUMBERS."
Post #19 See Stages 2-3, 4. #19

Denial - Dual Personality - Silence"... if faith, as they like to say, is the knowledge of things unseen, it is also the ignorance of things known, and once the ignorance is removed, the faith is sure to follow. That is why it's so important for cult-like religions to keep their flock in the dark. On the other hand, someone who gains knowledge has a distinct advantage if he wants to play the game, even if he plays with altruistic motives, which I'm certain most do.

"For example,I had a companion in Sweden who lived a double-life without apparent strain.He was a charismatic fellow who had little trouble converting people to the church (although they usually stopped attending as soon as he was sent to another town), and he suffered no qualms about hanging out in the beer halls with the ladies after the sun had gone down. He was, last time I talked to him, a bishop. I had called him, as I was wont to do every couple of years ... the last time we talked, I made the mistake of asking him point blank, "You don't really believe all those stories about the golden plates and the angels that took them away, do you?" There was an awkward silence, and then he said, "America was built on freedom of religion!" The anger in his voice discouraged my probing his obtuse response, for the point here was that I'd breached the line, broken the code of silence, threatened the vail of deniability."
Post #23

Denial - History Rewritten"I was in the ward library going through one of the Church History books .... This book contained some writings from Joseph Smith's personal journal. I read, with my own eyes, from Joseph Smith's own journal that he and the church had no official opinion on the plight of the black slaves in America during this time. He wrote in his journal that he did not think the black slaves should be freed. I sat back in total disbelief. Up to that point, I was told by church members and church literature that the reason the Mormons were driven out of Missouri was because the Mormons were "anti-slavery," and that the "Gentile" settlers of Missouri wanted to enter the Union as a slave state."
"Yes. No. Yes.""I was recently amused by the behavior of current Mormon prophet Gordon B. Hinckley. He was interviewed by Time Magazine a few months ago. Time asked Hinckley about the Mormon Doctrine of men becoming gods. Hinkley answered that he didn't know much about the doctrine and that it was not being taught, but he admitted once hearing something about it.Well, that was pretty much a text book definition of a lie. A short time later at General Conference, Hinckley tells the Saints that the media "mis-reported" him, and not to rely on the media for spiritual guidance."
Post #28 See: Stage 1, 2-3, 4. #28

"No. Yes. Yes/No.""Most of my class work at BYU dealt with either the study of computers or the study of theology - two fields that have little intersection therefore no controversy. Biology 100, however, was different. Here we were taught evolution which I knew to be in conflict with the opinions of (Apostle) Boyd K. Packer and Bruce R. McConkie. All four biology teachers stood in front of the 200+ students in the Joseph Smith Auditorium and declared, "We are not here to tell you that evolution is a partial explanation of the origin of the species. We are here to say that all life forms, including humans, evolved from lower life forms. Man evolved from apes"They went on to "prove" their statement using the fossil record, DNA comparisons and so on. Then they quoted David O. McKay as saying, "The LDS church has no official position on the theory of evolution."To me, this was a stunning contradiction because many of the church leaders clearly taught that evolution was a false doctrine."
Post #35

"Is, Is not, Yet is." - Dual Personality"I wrote down some thoughts about the Mormon perspective. This has helped me see why it's so difficult to leave the LDS church. These points are all official doctrines of the Church and perspectives that are regularly ingrained into the membership. What blows me away now is that maintaining just a couple of these perspectives often keeps a Mormon in the Church. (He lists 19 official doctrines.)

(#11) "When an Apostle or Prophet says something that is accepted to be true, he is directly inspired by God. When he says something that turns out to be false, he was speaking as a man. But either way, it's no(t) to matter to you. These men will never lead you astray."
Post #36.

"Does. Does Not. Yet Does.""Heber J. Grant, who later became the Mormon leader and prophet, reigning during the depression, was earlier in life made stake president. In stake conference at the time of being made stake president, he bore his testimony, saying, "I believe the gospel is true." Some members of the church protested about this to one general authority. The GA replied, "He knows the gospel is true, but he does not know that he knows it."
Post #38 See Stages 2-3, 4. #38

Denial - Blank-out - History"It started to get clearer to me that somehow, some way, there was a huge empire built around these fabulous claims of the early to mid 1800s that somehow mutated sociologically so that few people continued to associate the church's culture with Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, but rather with the wholesome image of today as an organization with warm, touchy feelings, and a lot of great 'programs' for its members. It is interesting to observe that when these doctrinal and historical problems surface, there are numerous homilies and alibis that are used by the Mormon faith to bully its members from crossing the line from faith to rational thought. The following two are especially convenient: "God's ways are not Mans Ways" and "In the last days, even the very elect will be deceived" and they are extremely effective. At least they were for me as they succeeded in cowering me into submission for the majority of my life."
Post #44

Obfuscation - History - Denial"The reporter (from the Los Angeles Times) asked (President) Hinckley to comment about the l993 Branch Davidian tragedy and about the Mormon Church's evolution from "fringe" sect to respectability. President Hinckley -- a practiced, high-viscosity media hand -- made some noises about religious freedom but carefully emphasized that the Church has nothing to do with "fringe" groups and that the "law" can deal with them:" "We just plow our own furrow and go forward," concluded Hinckley.

"Curious, isn't it, how Hinckley -- who as a court historian for the LDS Hierarchy expended a lot of indignation over the supposed indifference to the Mormons' plight displayed by 19th century leaders -- now considers such indifference to be a virtue -- at least, when it's some other "fringe group" that's on the receiving end of federal persecution."

"Like many others, Hinckley compared Waco to Jonestown. But an apter comparison is to Nauvoo: A young, charismatic, sexually omnivorous "prophet" organizes an insular, theocratic community with its own militia. However, while we can document Joseph Smith's extracurricular sexual exploits, less is known about the reliability of the accusations against David Koresh. (Joseph's "revelation" is in the LDS Standard Works, after all.) Furthermore, Koresh -- whatever else might be said about him -- displayed no such grandiose ambitions as those animating the organizer of the Council of Fifty, the commander-in-chief of the "war department" of the Church, the Masonically-connected independent Presidential candidate, and self-crowned "Prophet, Priest and King over Israel on Earth" -- that is, Joseph Smith."
Denial:"The gentleman from message number 47 mentioned how he had a little "box" in the back of his mind where he stored his doubts and misgivings. This phrase resonated with my own interview a little more than a week ago, when I was "called in" by my Stake President as a result of letters I had written to the First Presidency. ... He seemed genuinely concerned about me, at least within his familiar frame of reference. But he invited me to "find a little box where you can keep all of these concerns" while I got on with the business of being a typical Mormon; I told him that I couldn't do that any longer, and that such an effort was undermining my peace of mind and making me physically ill.

"We went the usual rounds of off-putting, temporizing tactics -- the recital of lines like "someday we'll understand when all the facts are in," that "we must have faith like a little child," ad nauseum. I explained to my President that ... faith can serve as a shortcut to truth, but it cannot justify persistence in error; faith can help us learn the truth, but it cannot alter tangible facts."
Post #64

History - "Yes. No. Yes.""Apostle Bruce R. McConkie admitted that Brigham Young did teach that Adam was God, and that the church has indeed lied about its own history. He says that Brigham Young was wrong, but he has gone to the Celestial Kingdom; but if you believe what Brigham Young taught about that, you will go to hell. The fact that the church can put a "positive spin" on these admissions is truly mind-boggling."
Post #66